So, before she returned to her hotel, she made a round of calls, and left her cards at about a dozen different houses.
She then went back to her room at the hotel and spent the remainder of the day in unpacking and reviewing her elegant wardrobe.
There was no sort of necessity for doing this, especially as she intended to remain but a few days at the house; and the operation would only give her the trouble of repacking again to move.
But Mary Grey never read or wrote or sewed or embroidered if she could avoid it, and had nothing on earth else to occupy or amuse her; so her passion for dress had to be gratified with the sight of jewels, shawls and mantles, laces, silks and satins, even though she durst not wear them.
Next day the rector's wife called on her and recommended a very superior boarding-house to her consideration.
It was a private boarding-house, in a fashionable part of the town, kept by two maiden ladies of the most aristocratic family connections and of the highest church principles.
This was exactly the home for Mrs. Grey.
And the rector's wife kindly offered to take her, then and there, in the rectory carriage, to visit "the Misses Crane," the maiden ladies in question.
"The Misses Crane," as they were called, dwelt in a handsomely-furnished, old-fashioned double house, standing in its own grounds, not very far from the Government House.
The Misses Crane were two very tall, very thin and very fair ladies, with pale blue eyes and long, yellow, corkscrew curls each side of their wasted cheeks.